Deer under siege

A group of young deer graze at last light on a hill in Dartmouth in May. Concerns are being raised about the damage inflicted on crops by deer. (TIM KROCHAK / Staff)

CENTREVILLE — Nova Scotia farmers say white-tailed deer are eating too many of their crops, and they’ve asked the province to help with the problem.

The damage seems worse this year than in the past, Henry Vissers, executive director of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, said in an interview Wednesday.

“We think it’s worse because there is more intensive cropping and because there are more soybeans being grown,” he said.

Soybeans are a crop favoured by deer, but there are also concerns over other forage crops, along with blueberries and apples.

Jim Burrows, a dairy farmer near Truro, said Wednesday that deer have eaten as much as 20 to 40 per cent of his soybean crop this year.

“It is getting progressively worse,” he said.

“We have deer in the soybeans this time of year when the plants are still small. They thin out the plants along the edge of the field.”

He said the deer return in August and strip the pods off the plants. The damage is so severe in some fields he doesn’t bother harvesting them.

“Less deer would be the solution,” Burrows said.

“The question is how do we get to that point.”

The white-tailed deer population has “just exploded” in his area, he added.

The agriculture federation met recently with officials from the provincial departments of Agriculture and Natural Resources. It asked the province to improve the nuisance permits system to allow farmers to conduct a deer cull on their farms if needed.

The federation also asked for improvements to a provincial wildlife compensation program. Farmers have complained about the program for years, especially about how it quantifies wildlife damage in a field or crop.

“I think it works reasonably well if it’s livestock that’s lost,” said Burrows. “But for crops, the program is quite ineffective … It’s very difficult to put a claim together, the way the program works.”

The federation has also asked for an increase in bag limits for hunters in some of the areas where there are large deer populations.

And it has requested more research to help develop a long-term strategy for dealing with nuisance wildlife.

Vissers said farmers are being told the overall deer population is down in the province.

“But that’s hard to believe, looking at some of the numbers we’re seeing.”

He added that farmers may also need to be better educated on what they can do to mitigate damage.

“There is some pretty good information on the Department of Natural Resources website on how to control wildlife.